the impact of teachers non-verbal questioning behavior …

ISSN 1907-6665

Vol. 13, No. 1, April 2019 e-ISSN 2622-074

11

THE IMPACT OF TEACHERS NON-VERBAL QUESTIONING BEHAVIOR

ON STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN THE CLASSROOM

Asrori

The State University of Surabaya, English Department,

Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia

e-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Questioning has been becoming the subject of the study since it is regarded as one of

the most important ways to maintain the classroom interaction. Several studies have

been carried out on the use of questions but most of them are focused on the type of

questions used by the teacher. Moreover, the teacher often neglects their non-verbal

behavior when they deliver questions to the students. Hence, this study investigates

the impact of teachers nonverbal questioning behavior on the students’ participation.

The study was conducted with teacher and students of State University of Surabaya

(UNESA). The data were the conversations between teacher and students in the

Reading classroom taken through video recording and observation. The result of the

study shows that teacher’s nonverbal questioning behavior affects much on the

students’ participation in the classroom. Maintaining eye contact to the students while

asking questions gives a good effect on keeping the students participation. Moreover,

the appropriate use of other nonverbal questioning behaviors such as calling the

students while asking , giving a right wait time, handling the students’ answer

positively, also give positive effect on the students participation.

Keywords: non-verbal questioning behavior, students’ participation

12 Volume 13, Nomor 1, April 2019

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21107/prosodi.v13i1.5346

INTRODUCTION

Classroom discourse has become the subject where some teachers/researchers

pay attention much. Classroom discourse is one of the discourses that happens part in

the classroom. Richards, et.al (1992:52) define classroom discourse as one of the types

of discourse happens in the classroom. It focuses on the language used by the teacher

and students in the process of teaching learning. It is also called as pedagogic discourse

and different in its form and function from language used in different situation because

of the distinct social roles of students, lecturers, and activities they are engaged in.

Nunan (1993) says that classroom discourse is a type of discourse that happens

in the classroom. It is the use of spoken language by teachers and students in the

classroom. Richards, et.al (1992:52) define classroom discourse as the type of

discourse or the use of language in the classroom. This lecturer-student discourse is

also referred to as pedagogic discourse, and of course the languages found in the

classroom used by teachers and students has different form and function from the

languages used outside the classroom because the distinct social roles of students,

teachers , and activities they are engaged in.

The use of questions takes a big part in the classroom. Most of time in the

classroom used by the teacher and students to deliver and answer the questions. As

what is suggested by . Chaudron (1988) that questions take 20-40 percent of classroom

talk, while Tsui (1995) identified where almost 70 percent of classroom interaction

consists of the questions delivered by the teacher, responses of the students on the

questions, and feedback given by the teacher on the students’ response. Questions

themselves, take some important roles in the. Hall (2011) says that questions help

lecturers elicit information, check learners’ understanding and keep learners’ attention.

They also provide learners with a language practice opportunity when they answer.

Lecturer questions, therefore, fulfill a clear pedagogic purpose and also enable

lecturers to exert control over learners.

Several studies have been done by the researchers on the questions especially

about their effects on the students’ participation. The focus of the researches were

mostly on the use of the type of the questions (verbal) while non-verbal questioning

behavior is neglected though it also takes some effects on the students’ participation.

Thus this study focused on the effect of non-verbal questioning behavior on students’

participation in the classroom.

RESEARCH METHOD

The focus of this study was the interaction between the teacher and students of

The State University of Surabaya especially the use of non-verbal questioning

behavior by the teacher while conducting teaching. The study investigated how non-

verbal questioning behavior carried out by the teacher affected the students

participation in the classroom.

This study used descriptive qualitative design since the data was in the form of

words. The data were taken from the conversation and teacher and students’ behavior

in the classroom. Descriptive qualitative research described the phenomenon happened

in the Reading classes of the English Department of State University of Surabaya in

the form of words instead of numbers. The phenomena dealt with the use of non-verbal

questioning behavior by the teacher and its effect to the students’ participation.

The subjects of this study were a lecturer and 6 semester students of English

Department of State University of Surabaya (UNESA). A Scientific Reading class was

Asrori, The Impact of Teachers Non-Verbal Questioning Behavior on.... 13


chosen class was chosen by consideration that this class requires much interaction

between lecturer and students. Scientific Reading is an advance Reading where

students are required to be able to explain the content of the text, to paraphrase, and

make a summary of the text. Other than that, students are also required to explain and

criticize academic articles, research articles, and books. Moreover, the students are

required to answer the questions provided by the lecturer and also the reading books

used by the lecturer.

The result of the observation and transcribed data obtained from the three

meetings of Scientific Reading class were then analyzed. First, the researcher

identified the lecturer questions and also students’ response toward the lecturer

questioning behavior. Second, from the result of the teacher questioning behavior,

then the researcher analyzed the effect toward students’ response.

QUESTIONING BEHAVIOR

In some cases, teachers are not really aware with their questioning behavior.

They just conduct the class and deliver the questions as their ways. Unfortunately, the

use of inappropriate behavior of asking questions will give an impact toward students’

response. Teachers should learn some strategies and behavior before questions in their

classrooms. Orlich et al. (2004:244) remind us to avoid using questioning for "punitive

purposes" because it can make the learning process. Another questioning strategy

when asking that the teacher should pay attention is pausing. For Orlich et al. (2004)

and many other psychologists, questioning is a process of "asking the question,

pausing, and then calling on a student". Nonverbal questioning such as pointing or

nodding to students to answer is another important behavior in asking questions. All

these nonverbal behaviors, and others, help the teacher to make correct and meaningful

questions because they activate the learners’ participation, understanding, and

communication. Here are some questioning behavior that should be used by teacher

when they are in teaching and learning process.

A. Using Gestures

Nonverbal behavior of delivering questions is as important as the verbal behavior

to maintain the communication between teacher and students in the classroom. tHe

teacher should try to make a balance when she/he is asking the questions and handling

students’ response. The teacher’s nonverbal questioning behavior, such as eye contact,

nodding, facial expressions, and hand gestures, can help him delivering good and

effective questions and get good responses. When the teacher uses using nonverbal

questioning behavior, he/she should see it as "seeking knowledge" rather than

"interrogating the troops" (Davis, 1993, p. 83). Paying attention on the eye contact to

the students when he/she is delivering questions will give a good impact on them that

they will feel that the teacher pay attention on them and are interested to their. This act

then makes the students feel confident and have high motivation to participate in the

classroom.

B. Wait Time

Wait time is the time given between asking questions and pointing/calling

students and the time give to the pointed students or others to think of their

responses/answers Orlich, et al.,(2004). It is one of the important elements in teaching

and learning process because it gives the students time to think of the response/answer



of the questions given by the teacher. Not only for students, wait time also gives the

teacher to students’ nonverbal signals that indicate excitement, fright, shame, interest,

apprehension, etc. Orlich, et al. believe that if the teachers become more sensitive to

“humanitarian consideration”, the dimension of teaching becomes very important.

C. Handling Students' Responses

In teaching and learning process, there should be communication happens

between students and teacher. One of them in questioning and answering session. In

many occasions, most teachers don’t pay attention on the behavior on how he or she

handles the students’ questions. On the other hand, handling the students.response

becomes a very important behavior that the teacher should pay attention on. The

correct response to the students’ answer given by the teacher to the questions will give

good effects on the students and vise versa. Orlich, et al. (2004:248) says that negative

words given to the students’ response like “Very bad answer”, / “You are wrong” will

discourage students and will give bad impacts to them. Moreover, that will reduce

students’ participation and motivation. Questions shouldn't be used for punishing

students because this can make the students to keep silent in the learning process and

“turns of” the learner instead of being active in the classroom.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A. The Use of Gestures

One of the focuses of the researchers is on the use of gestures by the lecturer

when she was teaching the students. The gestures mostly used by the lecturer were

maintaining eye contacts, nodding the head, hand gesturing, and facial expression.

From its quantity, the use of gestures like maintaining eye contacts, nodding the head,

hand gesturing and facial expression were used dirreferently by the lecturer. She used

eye contact much more than other behaviors. Maintaining eye contact when asking

questions gave a good effect to the students. From the observation, it was seen that the

use of eye contact gave good effects on the students. Students tended to pay attention

more to the lecturer when she maintained eye contact on them. The students seen it as

a signal of interest, boredom, empathy, hostility, attraction, understanding,

misunderstanding, and other messages. Moreover the various non-verbal behaviors

employed by the lecturer both when she was delivering the questions and giving

response to the students answer encourage the students to get involved more in the

classroom.

B. The Use of Wait Time

The above explanation about wait time says that wait time is divided into two:

(1) wait time 1 that is the time between delivering questions and calling on the students

and (2) wait time 2 that is the time given to the students called to answer the questions

or other students to think their response.. Graph 1 shows the percentages of wait time

1 used by the lecturer.



Figure 1: The use of wait time 1 by the lecturer

Figure 1 showed about the wait time 1 used by the lecturer whe she was

teaching. It was divided into two based on the seconds needed. They were more

than 3 seconds and less than 3 seconds. From the figure it could be seen that

the lecturer mostly gave the students less than 3 seconds to answer the

questions. It took 68% of the questions asked. The rest of the 32%, the lecturer

gave more than 3 seconds for the students to answer. The two different times

were used in delivering different questions. From the observation, it was

shown that the lecturer gave students not more than 3 seconds when she asked

lower-level questions. The excerpt below were some examples of the case

where the students were given less than 3 seconds to answer the questions

[10] L : I had no vacation plans because I was down to my last dime. What

is it?

Ss : don't have money.

L : didn't have much money, he was broke, bokek.

My check from home had not arrived on schedule—probably

because of the crush of the holiday season—leaving me stranded.

What is stranded?

Ss : terdampar.

L : I discovered that my friends had thoughtfully left behind enough

food for a poor-man’s feast: cans of tuna, boxes of Rice-a-Roni,

cartons of eggs, loaves of bread and many bags of tea. So I ate

omelets for brunch and improvised dinner casseroles. Often I left

the oven door open after heating up a casserole to let a bit of heat

circulate in the cold apartment. Why did he do so? What is his

reason?

S : because he celebrates his Christmas alone in the house

L : and then what happened?

S : because he has no money

L : he had no money to.

S : he had no money to ask the gas company to turn on the heat in our

quarters..



[11] L : ok one by one. he was good with his hand. what does it mean? yang lain

diam.

S : in doing the experiment.

L : in doing experiment. can we say that he was skillful?

S : yes

L : ya . in doing things. ok he liked using his head?

S : hmmm while he good in skills in experiments he also has brain eee

L : he has brain? everybody has brain. apa?

S : smart.

L : using his head!

S : hard thinker

S : Use his logic

L : good use his logic. he is logical. he use his logic to do something misalnya.

he is smart., he is intelligent. jadi tidak asal-asalan bekerja itu. haaa. and a

little daring

S : brave and willing to decrease

L : yaaa he is willing to decrease whenever he does something. in short he was

like any other man anywhere who is happy on his work. so he is a hard

worker he is happy. he enjoyed his work. ok slotin. continue please.

S : (continue reading)

L : what does it mean? each of which alone is too small to be dangerous and

which will only sustain a chain reaction when the are put together

S : the pieces of plutonium.

L : ya so what does it mean. is plutonium dangerous?

S : no if its separated.

L : if it stands by itself it is not dangerous.

S : when the are put together can be very dangerous

Excerpt [10] & [11] are examples where the lecturer asked some questions to the

students related to the topic that was Room for one more & Moral for Any Age. She

just gave time not more than 3 seconds for the students to answer the questions because

the questions were all low level questions and the students didn’t need much time to

think about the answer because it had been stated in the text. That’s why then, the

students didn’t find any difficulties to answer the questions.

The lecturer, on the other hand, also gave time to the students more than 3

seconds to answer the questions. She did it to the high-level questions when the

students needed to think more abut their answer and comprehend the reading before

answering. This way succeeded to make the students gave the right response/answer

to the questions given. Moreover, it also

[12] L : so what is then the relationship?

S : the title and the story?

L : yes..

S (1) : the relationship between the title and the story is when he spent his

holiday, his friend, Maria, not his friend actually, the secretary manned

of the office, invited him to spend the holiday, spend the Christmas eve

with her family.

L : so? Room for One More..



S (2) : I think the room itself here is a kind of a place means that Maria invited him

means that Maria gave him a place for the writer to enjoy to celebrate the

Christmas eve with her family. I think the room itself …….

In the question above, the lecturer gave more than 3 seconds for the students to

answer the questions. Though the question was a display question where the lecturer

knew the answer, the students needed time to comprehend the text before answering

the question. It also opened different answers based on the students’ comprehension

on the text. in Some cases, the lecturer needed to paraphrase the questions and gave

longer time for the students to answer the questions as what can be seen in the excerpts

below.

[13] T : Ya.. the assistant or the workers who help the expert. Slaugted…… what

is the purpose of slaugting in doing this…sssst…virlia. yang lain kalo bisa

keeping by yourselves nanti I will ask you. what is the purpose? slaughting

to do it. is there any special purpose for him to do it?

V : silent

T : so what about the others. raise your hand. who can help virlia.

S : to stop the chain reaction.

T : ya. so there is certain purpose. so why did he do that is to stop the chain

reaction. why did he do that?

S : in order the radioactivity will stop. will disappear. so the plutonium will

not explode.

T : iyaaaa in order that the plutonium wont explode. try to make it spread it.“

this was… virtually…. what does it mean?

S : because he can…….

T : nooo he got the most dangerous radioactivity. the effect is very dangerous

for him. and………….. to be fixed. so someone is too close will get more

danger. so why did he ask the coworkers to do that?? lha ini use your

logic. why did he ask the co worker to mark his ….Adi coba yang sudah

mesam- mesem dari tadi.

A : because he want to measure the reaction area I mean the length of the

reaction itself. so if he can know the position of someone when the

reaction happens maybe he can calculate how.. how..great the risk the

close person will have

From the 2 different times given by the lecturer for the students to students to

call the students’ name to answer the questions were applied to deliver different

questions and they also gave good effects on the students. The lecturer needed more

than 3 seconds when she gave high-level questions and less than 3 seconds when she

asked low-level questions. This lecturer’s behaviour gave the students a very good

effect that they have enough time to answer the questions and sudents didn’t feel

stressed or pushed by the lecturer that finally affect their answer.



Figure 2 : The use of wait time 2 by the lecturer

Figure 2 shows wait time 2 where lecturer gave the lecture gave the students to

give their response to the questios given. From the observation, it could be seen that

students mostlu couldnot answer the questions well when they were given not more

than 3 seconds to answer the question. The just answered the questions in a short

answer. It was different when they were given more than 3 seconds to answer the

question. They could answer the questions better3 because they had enough time to

think. Moreover, students looked stressed ewhen the lecturer pushed the students to

answer the questuions directly.

C. The Use of Nonverbal Behaviors

The results of the observation showed that nonverbal behaviors were also used

by the teacher other than verbal behaviors when asking questions. Some nonverbal

behaviors such as maintaining eye contact with students, nodding head, using facial

expression and using hand gesture. There were differences on the frequency of the

occurrence s of each nonverbal behavior as what could be seen in the following figure:

Figure 3: The Lecturer Nonverbal behaviors for Asking Questions in Reading classrooms



Figure 1 showed different frequency of the use of nonverbal behavior. From the

figure, it could be seen that the lecturer paid good attention to the students by always

maintaining eye contact when she asked questions to the students. It took 52% of all

questions asked. This behavior of course gave good effect for the students as what

Brown (2004:263) said that eye contact can signal many messages like, interest,

boredom, empathy, hostility, attraction, understanding, misunderstanding, and other

messages.

Moreover, the lecturer also maintained her other nonverbal behaviors when she

was asking questions. She used different nonverbal gestures such as nodding her head,

using facial expression and hand gesturing to keep on the students’ response. Nodding

the head took 9%, facial expression 16%, and using hand gesture 23%. Those non

verbal gestures gave a good effect for the students to keep focusing on their response.

Davis (1993:89) says that gestures like nodding or pointing help to keep the focus on

students’ responses rather than shifting attention to the teacher.

Figure 4: The position of the lecturer when she was asking questions and listening to

response

In asking and responding the questions, the lecturer put herself in different

position. She used to sitting more than standing. From the observation, lecturer tended

to sit while giving questions or listening to response because she felt more comfortable

to do so. Of course, that behavior gave different effect to the students’ response.

D. Calling on Students

In some cases, lecturer needs to point students to answer the questions. He/she

needs to call them to answer. Calling them can be done through different ways. The

lecturer can directly call the students’ names, let the students have their own initiative

to raise their hand (volunteer), or ask all students in the classroom to answer the

questions together. That what the lecturer did in the classrooms. She did calling the

students to answer the questions in different ways. Figure 5 shows the percentages of

the lecturer’s behavior in calling the students: calling names before asking, calling

names after asking, calling for volunteers and asking the whole class



Figure 5: Ways of Calling Students to answer

Figure 5 shows different distribution of the ways of the lecturer in calling the

students to answer the questions. 6% was done by calling the name of the students

before asking the questions, 21 % by calling names after asking questions, 41% by

calling for volunteers, and 46% by calling the entire class. From the distribution, it

could be seen that the lecturer rarely did calling the name of the students in asking the

questions.

Calling the students’ name before giving the question which took 6% give at

least two advantages (Bond:2007). First, the teacher can make sure about the good and

wide variety of engagement during the lesson. Second, all students clearly know whom

the teacher is addressing and thus management problems should be minimized. This

can be achieved by calling the students’ name randomly. The students will closely pay

attention s ince they don’t know who will be called by the teacher to answer the

questions. Moreover, calling the students’ names after asking questions which took

7% also gave different advantages. It encourages the students to listen and prepare

their answers in anticipation of being asked (Cohen:2005). “To keep students on their

toes” teachers need to use the element of surprise and uncertainty.

[14] L : next pls. Novi would you please. Novi tu mahasiswa yang paling anteng

selama saya mengajar. padahal saya sudah mengajar 35 tahun

Ss : woooooow

L : no 8 ya

S : in 29….. D

[15] L : can we cross out/can we omit the word if requested. I ask you Agung

S : cannot. for myself it cannot.

L : why?

S : because … the senior students would, if requested, perform in outside

theaters during the evening

The excerpts above are the examples where the lecturer called the name in

asking the question (before and after). These ways were done to give students who

were very passive in the class. The lecturer tried to give the student to chance to interact

by calling the name and of course it forced the student to communicate. Calling the

name before asking the question to the passive student gave a good effect where she

could prepare the answer. From the observations, when the lectures asked



E. Handling Students’ Responses

The lecturer did handling the students’ response by different ways from positive

to negative ways. Correct and incorrect responses were handled differently as can be

seen in figure 6 below.

Figure 6: Lecturer’s handling Students’ Responses

From the figure above, it could be seen that the lecturer did a good behavior in

handling the students’ response. She highly appreciated and encouraged the students

by positive way to their response of the questions.

CONCLUSION

Using appropriate non-verbal questioning behavior is very important as using

the questions themselves. Wait time is very important to give students a chance to

prepare their answer. Giving wait time less than 3 seconds are appropriate for low-

level questions and for high level-questions, more than 3 minute wait time is needed.

Moreover, gestures like eye contact, nodding head, facial expression and hand

gesturing are very important to be maintained to make the students feel comfortable to

answer the questions. Calling the students’ name sometimes give good effect to the

students where they can focus to the questions given by the lecturer and can make the

passive students to participate. While calling the volunteer which can give any students

to participate also brings negative effect where there will be students who dominate

the class. Moreover, calling the entire class makes the lecturer get unclear answers.

Handling the students response positively both by gesture or complimentary words

gives students confidence to be more active in the class while negative handling can

make the students feel embarrassed and stop participating.

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